McClarty, David Carmi

David Carmi McClarty was born on December 23, 1853, in the Province of Quebec, Canada, to David McClarty and Jane Longeway McClarty. After growing up on his family farm and working for six years in Salem, Washington County, New York, he moved to California in 1880 to work in the lumber woods of Sonora, Tuolumne County. He managed the G. W. Hopper grain ranch in Modesto from 1884 to 1885 before moving to Fresno in 1886, where he purchased land from M. J. Church and helped grade the Santa Fe railroad branch through Reedley and Sanger.

Settling on his property near Parlier, McClarty developed a ranch planted with muscat and Thompson seedless grapes alongside fruit orchards while championing local irrigation ditches and cooperative marketing agencies like the California Raisin Association. Married in 1875 to Annie Niblock, the daughter of Alexander and Agnes Niblock, he raised two children, Gertrude and Jasper, who both established their own ranches and families near Parlier. In 1918, McClarty and his wife retired to a bungalow on Washington Avenue in Selma, leaving a legacy of civic involvement and agricultural development in Fresno County.